Heartbeat
by MegEvans1983
Summary: ONE-SHOT: The average person's heart beats between sixty and a hundred beats per minute. Andy's however ceased to beat for an instant when Sam flatlined on a raining September evening in the Emergency Room of 'Mercy Hospital'.


**A/N: **This idea just came to me after the finale aired. I experienced a case of writer's block, so that's why it's been slightly delayed. But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

As always I would love to receive some feedback on this piece in the box at the bottom of the page ;)

* * *

**Heart-beat (n). A vital force or driving impulse. (Synonyms: instant, split second, blink of an eye).**

* * *

_**Boom**_

_**Boom**_

_**Boom**_

_It's dark._

_She is flooded in darkness, as her heavy feet follow the doctor down the corridor._

_Andy __**hates**__ hospitals. _

_Absolutely hates them. _

_Nothing good has ever happened here. _

_Okay, Olivia was born here, but that coincided with Jerry dying, so it doesn't really count. All, Andy knows is that whenever she sets foot in this place, something terrible happens._

_Like right now._

"_Officer McNally?!" the doctor's strong voice snaps her out of her thoughts, and she realizes that they're standing outside the very room, where Sam had flatlined no more than an hour ago._

"_Yes?"_

"_Are you sure you're ready for this?" he asks concerned by the frightened look on her face. _

_Nodding her head, Andy offers up the only reply that she can give him. _

"_Alright..," the doctor acquiesces stepping aside, and allowing her to open the door. _

_What Andy had expected to see had been Sam being hooked up to multiple machines, and the sound of his deep breathing echoing off of the white walls._

_But that's __**not**__ what she sees._

_A white sheet is draped across his still body, and all of the sudden every memory she has ever shared with this man, is running through her mind on repeat._

"_**You're my story, Sam. You."**_

_Not anymore._

_Because Sam is dead._

_**Dead.**_

"_No!"_

* * *

Gasping, Andy wakes up in a sweat, riddled with thoughts of blood, loss and utter devastation. As her pulse slows down, she feels a pair of strong arms tugging her into a very familiar chest.

_Sam's._

It is a recurring nightmare that Andy seems to be having more and more, the closer Sam's first day at work comes. And since he's starting back up tomorrow morning, it's no wonder that her subconscious is riddled with all the _'what-if's'_ of the world of what could've happened if the doctors hadn't been able to bring him back to life after having flatlined twice.

Andy rests her cheek on his chest before positioning her leg over his groin and inhaling the musky scent that is uniquely Sam's on a deep inhale.

Despite the fact that he is holding her so tight against his chest, Andy knows that he's asleep from the way that his breath is hitting her forehead, and whisking a couple of locks of hair away from her forehead each time he exhales.

Andy's gaze travels down Sam's torso left bare by the sheet that's covering him from the waist down taking in the evidence of what they've been through in the past couple of months.

She can't keep her fingers from tracing along the line of his scar, something that Andy does every night when they're lying in bed.

The scar bears witness to everything they had come so close to losing that night, and all the obstacles that still stand in their way.

Suddenly, Sam inhales sharply, making his abdominal muscles tighten, alerting Andy to the fact that he's stirring.

"Hey..," Sam's voice is coarse from sleep, as he takes in the look on Andy's face. She's circling her fingers around the scar that's marring his abdomen, while keeping her eyes glued to his in the very early morning light that's coming through the partially drawn drapes.

"Hi, yourself." She replies, reaching up to kiss him softly on the lips. Before giving Sam a careful smile, she sits up straight in bed, reaching for the shirt that he had struggled out of no more than a couple of hours ago.

Or rather, Andy had struggled him out of it in her quest to get him naked as quickly as possible after having celebrated Sam's return to 15 Division at _'The Penny'_ with some of their friends.

"What _are_ you doing?" he asks eying the alarm clock on the bedside table that reads 4:33 AM.

"I'm thirsty." Andy announces, feeding her arms through the sleeves of the shirt. "Just go back to sleep." She tells him, buttoning up the garment, as she walks out of the room.

"You sure?" He asks, pulling himself up on his elbows watching, as Andy turns around once she's reached the doorway.

Shrugging her shoulders small, she disappears down the hall, as Sam plops his head back down onto the pillow.

Rubbing his face with his hands, Sam looks up at the ceiling letting what had happened last night at _'The Penny'_ flash through his mind. He hadn't wanted to act all cave-man when Collins had entered _'The Penny'_, and approached Andy at the bar – but he had.

* * *

"_So, you all set for tomorrow, brother?" Oliver asked sitting opposite Sam with Celery cradled against his side._

"_It's no big deal," Sam shrugged, his eyes fixed on Andy, who was standing at the bar flagging down the bartender for a beer. _

_Ever since he had woken up in the hospital, she had been glued to his side. Insisting on helping him recuperate, which entailed cooking him dinner, nursing his wound and finally showering with him once they had talked everything through._

_Marlo was gone, but Collins was still very much present in their lives. Well, Andy's mostly since she insisted on maintaining her friendship with the guy, which Sam on some level understood, but there was no way in hell that the guy would move in on her._

_Not if __**he**__ had anything to say about it._

_As if on cue, Sam watched as Collins approached Andy at the bar – with his signature good-guy smirk in place. He really couldn't stand the guy. As he watched them together, Sam silently wondered how he could've missed all of the signs. Sure he'd had his suspicions back when Diaz' kid had been kidnapped, but watching them now, he wondered where the hell his gut-feeling had been hiding back then, probably the same place that his mind had been back when he'd started things up with Marlo._

_If ever he had made a mistake, then that must have been it. Not because of Marlo herself, but because he had tried to hide his feelings for Andy away by starting something new up with someone else - when it had been Andy, that he'd wanted all along._

"_Detective Swarek, hello?!" Oliver flailed his hands in front of Sam's face, trying to regain his attention after he'd been lost in thought about the clusterfuck that was the last year of going back and forth with Andy. _

"_Hmm..?" he tore his eyes away from Collins and Andy when she's walking towards their table again – leaving G.I. Joe behind at the bar. _

"_You sort of zoned out on us there for a minute, buddy. You sure everything's..," Oliver halted mid-sentence, turning around to see what had been occupying Sam, and upon finding Collins staring at Andy's retreating back, the puzzle fell into place._

"_Hey," Oliver snapped his fingers in front of Sam's face making his friend pay attention. "__**You**__ won; you and McNally are back together again, so don't screw it up!" he warned him._

"_What makes you think that I'm gonna screw it up?" Sam asked leaning back in the chair with his arms stretched out._

"_Well," Celery said joining their conversation. "Your corrugator muscles are furrowed," she said pointing to Sam's forehead. "Your lips are tight and your teeth are clenched. So, in layman's terms..," Celery paused looking at first Oliver and then Sam, who were both looking at her like the wicca that she was._

"_Yes..?" Sam prodded her._

"_You look pissed off."_

_Sitting back in his chair with a satisfied smirk on his face, Oliver let his friend know that he's agreeing one-hundred percent with Celery._

"_Whatever," Sam scoffed right when Andy took a seat next to him._

"_Now what?" she asked, sensing that she'd just walked right into the middle of something. _

"_Just chatting about how happy we are that you and Sammy here," Oliver waved an arm in Sam's direction before adding. "Are back together."_

"_Really?" Andy asked with an arched brow. _

"_Yes. And on that note, I think I'll take my very beautiful girlfriend onto the dance floor." He announced, as he and Celery made their way to where people were moving to the music._

"_Alright, Swarek," Andy said turning around in her seat to face him. "What's going on?"_

"_I don't know what you mean..," Sam shrugged his shoulders. _

_Counting to ten, she told him that they'd agreed to build their relationship on trust, and if they were going to succeed then they needed to be honest with each other._

_Closing his eyes, he realized that Andy was right, he needed to be honest with her, but he knew that being honest about what he was feeling right in that minute, also meant opening up a can of worms. _

"_How is your __**friend**__ doing?" Sam asked with so much venom in his tone of voice, that it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he'd seen Andy talking to Nick up at the bar._

"_Nick was fine. Just stopped by to say hello, and to hear how things were going."_

"_Things…or __**you**__?" he asked making it abundantly clear that he was far from being okay with Andy's insistence to keep Collins in her life – even if just as a friend._

"_Sam..," Andy sighed at the prospect of going through yet another discussion about Nick, and why she felt the need to keep him in her life. _

"_You know what?" Sam said, tossing a couple of bills on the table before standing up. "I'm beat, and with tomorrow being a big day and all, I'm just gonna call it a night."_

_Andy watched, as he made his way through the bar, saying his goodbyes on the way. She knew that she was asking a lot of him, and honestly, she really didn't know if she could handle Sam being just friends with Marlo, if she were still around. _

_But she needed to make amends to a lot of people for the mess that had been her and Nick. Most of all Gail, but even progress was being made on that front. Peck could stomach sitting in the cruiser with Andy now, so that was indeed something._

_Abandoning her beer on the table, Andy shrugged into her jacket, mouthing a __**'see you tomorrow'**__ to Traci, who was dancing with Steve on the dance floor. Their friendship was yet another thing that needed some rebuilding, they were well on their way, but this past year had been hard on that relationship too._

_Stepping into the darkened parking lot, Andy squinted her eyes making them adjust to the darkness surrounding her, and trying to find the silver truck. That's when she felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around her waist from behind, and on instinct, she elbowed, whoever was standing behind her in the stomach, making him belt over in pain._

"_Dammit, McNally!" Sam groaned, clutching his lower stomach where Andy knew his scar was located. She had after all cleaned and dressed that wound countless times after Sam had been released from the hospital._

"_Sam! What are you doing?!" she yelled at him. "You don't creep up behind women in abandoned parking lots. And look at you…are you hurt?" Andy asked – now in a softer tone of voice, seriously worried that she'd hurt him._

_Sam was doubled over, his arms folded across his mid-section, right where Andy's elbow had hit him. His head was bowed, she couldn't see his face, but she could only imagine the pain that he was feeling. _

_Taking two steps forward, Andy placed a tentative hand on Sam's shoulder. "Sam? WHAT?!" in less than a second, she was wrapped up in Sam's arms, and being carried to a nearby wall. She felt the roughness of __**'The Penny's'**__ brickwork cut into her thin jacket, but none of that mattered, since Sam had just slanted his mouth across hers. _

_It didn't take Andy long to wrap her arms around Sam's neck, while he plunged his tongue into her mouth, and she wrapped a leg around his hip._

_Despite being pissed at him, she couldn't deny all the feelings that he invoked in her – not to mention how much she'd missed him this past year._

"_Sam..?" she spoke against his very busy lips needing to tell him something. _

"_What?" he asked leaning back, to look Andy in the eyes. Those brown pools of hers could light up the entire parking lot if need be, but instead, she smacked him on the shoulder._

_Hard._

"_Ow!" he chuckled, pressing a hand to his shoulder, where Andy had just very swiftly smacked him. "What the hell was that for?" _

"_For scaring me to death!" she scolded him unable to keep one side of her mouth from lifting up in a small smirk. "Need me to kiss it better?"_

_Shaking his head at this __**very**__ complicated woman standing in front of him, Sam pulled Andy into his chest before pressing his lips against hers. _

"_Is that a yes?" Andy asked against his lips, her body shaking from the laughter that was making its way up her throat, while kissing him back._

"_We'll see, McNally," Sam quipped, as she wrapped her arms around his neck again. _

_In the distance, he could hear the door of __**'The Penny'**__ open and close, but it wasn't until he heard a car door slam shut that he opened one eye to check and see, who'd walked past them. _

_As Collins' jeep made its way out of the parking lot on screeching tires, Sam couldn't keep a satisfied smirk from appearing on his lips. _

_Collins had gotten the message._

* * *

When Andy hasn't come back to bed after a good thirty minutes, Sam decides to go find her. It won't do either of them any good if they're low on sleep in the morning.

He finds her standing in the living room by one of the windows, overlooking the darkened Toronto city with all of its lights on display. She seems to be in deep thoughts when he sidles up behind her, and wraps his arms around her waist from behind.

"I thought we agreed: no more coming up from behind and startling me..?" Andy asks placing her hands on top of Sam's that are linked on her stomach.

"I didn't startle you..," Sam whispers against her temple, pulling her in close, while running his nose up and down the side of her neck, inhaling Andy's scent.

"No, you didn't." Andy smiles softly.

"What's keeping you up?"

"Us."

Laughing softly against her skin, Sam says, "I figured as much, McNally. I need specifics. Do your thing."

"My _thing_?"

"Talk."

* * *

"_How much longer before he wakes up?" Andy asked the doctor, who had just turned off the machine that had been applying Sam with sleeping medication for the past three days._

"_Difficult to say, Ms. McNally," the doctor said as he jotted down something on his pad. "It depends on the patient, but I'd estimate an hour tops." He told her with a nod of his head, indicating that their conversation was over, and left Andy alone with Sam._

_Leaning in, she ran her fingers through his hair, something that she's been doing non-stop for the past three days it seemed. "You hear that, Sam? It's time to wake up. Wake up and face the music, __**Detective**__. We have a lot of stuff to figure out, __**together**__. _

_You must be sick of hearing my voice by now. All these anecdotes from the relationship that we both let slip through our fingers. You __**pushed**__ me away, and I __**ran**__ away when I should've stayed and tried to work things out with you. _

_Then," Andy took a deep breath before continuing. "Marlo happened, and then," she reached for Sam's hand, rubbing his knuckles with her thumbs before saying, "Nick happened, and everything just spiraled out of control. It's like all of the sudden, everything has suddenly become so clear to me, what I feel, who I feel it for, and that's you, Sam, you._

_You have to wake up, because I don't know who I'll be without you. So please," she rested her chin on top of their hands. "If you can hear me, open your eyes. Just open your eyes, Sam, please. Stay with me."_

* * *

"You heard me?" Andy turns around in his arms with a bewildered look on her face.

"I did," Sam nods his head, using his fingers to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear, fingering her earlobe.

Turning her head away, she makes him release his hold on her ear. "You have no idea what it felt like – watching you fighting for your life. Keeping my eyes glued on your stomach, to make sure that you were still breathing, on the machines to make sure that your pulse was steady – you have no idea." Andy whispered stepping away from him, and creating some distance between them.

"Andy..," Sam reaches out for her, but she shakes her head in the negative.

"No!" she snaps. "You were reckless, Sam. You weren't wearing a vest, you didn't have your gun, you just stood there like a human target – you might as well have flagged a red flag in front of Ford!" Andy angrily wipes away the tears that are streaming down her face.

It kills him to watch her cry, always has. All, Sam wants to do is to pull her into his arms, and tell her that everything will be okay.

Running both hands through his hair, he says, "I thought I had lost you, Andy. Ever since you left, with _him_, I felt like I was walking around in a daze. Then Marlo came to 15, and instead of feeling sorry for myself, and obsessing about you, I could breathe again…"

"If it's all the same, I'd rather not hear about how Cruz brought you back to life," Andy snipes trying to walk past him, but stops when Sam grabs her arm gently.

"That's _not_ what happened. No, listen to me," he tightens his grip on her arm when she tries to walk past him again. "We were friends, who needed something to fill the void in our lives with. I think you can relate to that," Sam raises his brows, beckoning Andy to see sense of it all.

"Fine," she nods her head, folding her arms in front of her chest. "What about when I came back? What then? Why didn't you do something? Anything?"

"I was hurt, Andy. I had spent the past six months thinking that you didn't give a toss about us, and then the night of Frank and Noelle's engagement party you told me something different. I didn't know what to do, and then Marlo shot that woman…"

"Wanda. Her name was _Wanda_."

"Wanda, yes." Sam nods his head. "From there on out, everything just snowballed." He watches, as she turns her back to him and walks to the window to look out. "I wanted to tell you, Andy. I did. But I couldn't see a way out of it without hurting…"

"Marlo?" Andy guesses.

"Either of you." He corrects her. "But she's gone now," Sam softly places his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them comfortingly.

"Nick isn't."

"No, he isn't." He exhales deeply against the back of Andy's head letting her know exactly how much it's killing him for Nick to have a part in her life.

"_Can_ we get through this, Sam? It's such a mess right now, and if you can't deal with Nick and me working together…"

"Hey, hey, hey," he turns her around in his arms making her look up at him. "I may not be crazy about the guy, but I can _deal_ with you working with him as long as you come home to _me_."

"Do you mean that?" she asks with a raised brow. "We need to trust each other, Sam, because without trust, we've got nothing."

"I know that."

"Good," Andy acknowledges his words with a nod of her head right before Sam pulls her into his chest for a hug. "And one more thing." She speaks against his bare chest.

"What?" he asks kissing her on the top of her head.

"You leave the Division without your vest on again; I'll kick your ass all the way to Scarborough."

"Point taken," Sam chuckles against her hair, as he leads her back to the bedroom.

* * *

_She's slumped in a chair next to Sam's hospital bed, as the sun was breaking through the blindfolds casting a golden glow on their two sleeping forms. _

_Andy began to wake up; feeling like something was different, something profound. _

_The sounds in the sterile room were the same; the steady sounds coming from the machinery letting her know that Sam was breathing._

_His doctor was very satisfied with his prognosis, and with physical therapy he didn't foresee any problems with Sam returning to his job._

_Him returning to work scared her though. If anything, then these past couple of days had shown her just how dangerous their job was, and how quickly life could change in a matter of seconds. _

_Inhaling deeply, Andy opened her eyes, and found herself staring into a pair of brown eyes, making her breath hitch. _

"_Hey," Sam's very throaty voice greeted her._

"_Hi!" she exclaimed all but jumping out of the chair, and leaping to her feet in true McNally-fashion. "How do you feel? Are you okay? Should I get the doctor?"_

_Unable to contain his smirk, Sam told her, "You're rambling, McNally."_

"_I'm told I do that."_

"_You do." He replied._

"_I do." She shrugged her shoulders small, as Sam closed his eyes from pure exhaustion._

_Leaning down, Andy pressed her lips against Sam's forehead. "Feels like déjà-vu, doesn't it?" he groaned with a wide smile on his lips, despite the pain, that she knew that he was in._

"_So, now what, __**Detective**__?" she asked running her fingers through his dark hair. _

"_Now," Sam cleared his throat before adding. "We start."_

"_We start again?" _

"_For the last time," Sam said with closed eyes, as Andy leaned her forehead against his, and their noses grazed._

* * *

"Sam?"

"Mmm..?" he asks into the darkness.

"You know that I never stopped right?" Andy asks shifting to her side, resting her head on her bent forearm. "Sam?"

"Never stopped what?" he yawns out loud, turning his head on the pillow to look at her.

"Loving you."

"Come here," he says, holding his arms out for her. Andy doesn't need any more incentive than that, and lets Sam cradle her against his side.

"I needed this," she sighs deeply nestling her head against Sam's chest. "You _do_ know, right?"

"Of course I know, Andy," he murmurs against her hair.

"How?"

"Because you're here."

"Hey," Andy nudges at his leg with her foot. "That's _my_ line."

"Our line, McNally," Sam replies, combing his fingers through her long tresses. "_Our_ line."

They fall asleep with a smile on their lips, realizing that even though their work is filled with hidden dangers, they're in it together.

**FIN**

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**A/N2:** thank you for reading :)

If all goes as planned, I'm counting on updating _**"Positively Positive"**_ sometime this coming weekend - so stay tuned!


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